Teen
Bible Study Eric Snow Ann Arbor, Michigan UCG
11-15-03
The
whole official worldview of the society around us, in the world’s of education,
science, government, almost without exception proclaims and supports
evolutionary theory. Charles Darwin,
“Origin of Species,” 1859, decisive book.
Perhaps most influential book published besides the Bible and maybe the
Quran. Have you heard your teachers at
school teach this theory? (ask for
showing of hands or comments) Even a
(likely) majority Christians, in many Protestant (mainline) and the Catholic
churches, support the theory of evolution:
theistic evolution. This means
God supervised and controlled the gradual changes of plants and animals
changing from one type to another until mankind was produced as well as all the
other species of plants and animals on the earth. You are ridiculed by many if
you deny this theory. But consider the
old story by Hans Christian Anderson, about the boy pointing out the emperor’s
new clothes weren’t clothes at all, but he had been tricked into walking around
naked. We know historically that
scientists have been wrong in the past, such as when they believed the earth
was the center of the universe and when they thought heat was an element like iron
or sulfur.
Is
evolutionary theory the same ultimately?
What kind of evidence exists for it?
Why do all these smart, educated people with fancy titles like Ph.D,
Th.D and M.S. believe in it? What do
you say when your teachers at school, especially in biology class, teach this
view? Can the Bible be lined up with the theory of evolution? Should we follow the lead of Catholics and
many Protestants and embrace some form of evolutionary theory as a compromise?
S.P.S. Because the Bible and the scientific
evidence don’t agree with the theory of evolution, we Christians should not
believe in it.
Why
does the church deny belief in evolution?
Let’s
look
at Scripture on the subject briefly:
Ask
for someone to read Exodus 20:8-11, the Fourth Commandment.
Notice
the analogy or comparison made between the days of the week and the days of
creation or recreation. Does it make
any sense to see them as different “days” in length? One is a billion years (rounding up) each, the other as 24-hour
days only? Would the Sabbath command
have any good foundation then? Would
the original “Sabbath” be a billion years long? Dr. Henry Morris:
“Yammin,” the plural Hebrew word means “days,” appears over 700 times in
the Old Testament, never means anything provably but a literal day (24 hours or
daytime of 12 hours).
Ask
someone to read Genesis 1:1-5
Do
we really think that v. 5 refers to anything but a literal 24-hour day? Refrain
pattern (of words) repeated for all six days of actual creation.
Ask
someone to read Genesis 1:14-19
Not
written poetically, like most of Job or the Psalms, can’t say it is a parable,
etc. Very methodical description.
Ask
someone to read Genesis 1:20-23
Direct creation issue, “kind” not equal to
“species,” key issue.
So,
if the Bible doesn’t line up with the theory of evolution, such as your
teachers in school would teach it, what should we say then? Do the scientific facts favor creation or
evolution?
Evolution
is philosophy, not science. It’s people
trying to come up with an explanation of how the world came to be without God
or any reference to miracles or the supernatural. They want to use human reason alone, not using any revelation
from God, such as what the Bible says.
They define “science,” the word, to mean “systematic explanations and
interpretations of facts without reference to God or miracles.” They assume there is no God, and then
interpret all the facts to fit their picture.
Same facts could be equally or better explained by creation, not
evolution. Example: evidence from similar structure of animals,
such as their limbs or (in people) hands.
The term for these kinds of arguments is “homology.” They will compare the anatomy, or overall
physical structure, of (say) a dolphin’s flippers, a horse’s hoofs, a pig’s feet,
a chimpanzee’s hand, and a human hand, and say “similarity proves
evolution.” (What type or class of
animal is compared here?) But could not
have God used the same basic structure when creating all these different
mammals? Does similarity prove evolution? Or does common design prove a Common
Designer? What you assume in advance
determines how you interpret the facts.
If you define “science” to mean “explanations of facts without referring
to God or miracles ever,” you’re going to reject the “Common design proves they
had the same Designer” interpretation of the facts.
Different
types of knowledge: Think of
experiments in science classes. Have
you ever done labs in school? Can
figure out right now if (say) gravity is true or not. Drop an item, measure its speed, etc. But did you ever see
Abraham Lincoln or George Washington alive?
How do you know if they ever lived?
How do you know that Lincoln was assassinated in 1865? Did you see Julius Caesar get assassinated
by a group of Roman senators in 44 b.c.?
Did you see the English general Wellington beat the French emperor and
general Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo in 1815? Do you doubt whether those things happened?
Historical
knowledge different from scientific knowledge.
You can go out and test scientific statements about whether they are
true or not. Do an experiment, and then
examine and explain its results. Do all
frogs have hearts and livers? Cut them
up, find out. But can you repeat the
battles of Waterloo or Gettysburg? Can
you have Abraham Lincoln assassinated again by John Wilkes Booth? History about what others said occurred in
the past, and trusting what they wrote down.
Archeology limited, gives only overall view if don’t know history of
area.
Now,
is evolution something you can see occurring right now? Or is it something about the past only? If about past, when no people were around to
see it, how can one know it actually happened?
Scientists assumed it happened because they don’t want to use any
reference to God or miracles. Fine
approach for currently observable events and things, really bad way to look at
things when in the distant past. Belief
in evolution is a leap of faith.
Can
nature always explain nature? Can the
universe explain itself? Or does the way
it is organized, its incredible complexity, show it had a Creator? Can random chance and natural selection
explain how all the plants and animals appeared? (Basis of evolution these two processes, not emphasized here).
Concession
by physicist H.S. Lipson (What does a
physicist study? cf. Einstein,
Newton). “The only acceptable
explanation is creation. I know that
this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a
theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it.” (Physics Bulletin, 1980, Vol. 31, p.
138). Now think about this guy’s
problem here. Does he want to believe
in God? Does he want to believe in
miracles? Also admitted: “In fact, evolution became in a sense a
scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are
prepared to ‘bend” their observations to fit in with it.”
Biggest
hurdle for evolution: The first living
cell. Have you studied the different
parts of a cell in school any? Law of
biogenesis, life must come from life, must be denied by evolutionists. So complex, couldn’t have occurred by
chance. Evolution only sounds good when
vague and general. When you get highly
specific, and start applying specific numbers to the physical structures
involved, it becomes absurd to believe in chance rather than God. (Science is about applying numbers to things
to “quantify” them, instead of making vague and broad generalizations that
sound nice but may not be true or specifically true). Example: Sir Fred Hoyle
and another scientist calculated the specific odds against getting 2000 special
proteins that speed up chemical reactions in a cell (organic catalysts). These are called enzymes. Without them, no cell can live. 1 out
of 1 followed by 40,000 zeros! (Evolution From Space, p. 24) Let’s think how big that number is: the number of atoms in the universe is
something like 1 followed by 70 zeros.
How many people live on earth?
Around 6 followed by nine zeros.
Life didn’t come from a protein soup in oceans, not enough time or big
enough oceans to make it, once one makes specific calculations. Theory sounds good until you get highly
specific, then it becomes absurd.
Fossil
record vs. evolution: Gaps all over the
place, hardly can find a transitional animal or plant. Yet evolution needs these since what’s been
called the “hopeful monster” theory is absurd.
(Bird out of dinosaur egg idea).
The basic issue of is nature full of gaps and abrupt differences, or are
all the differences really small and gradual between different types of animals
and plants. (Typology vs.
continuous). Charles Darwin himself,
the main founder of the theory of evolution, admitted the problems with the
fossil evidence for his theory back in 1859, things haven’t changed since
despite all the fossils found since then.
(“extreme imperfection,” how know it is except assume transitional
plants or animals not found yet? May be
a good sample even back then.)
Steven
Stanley: “The known fossil record fails
to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major
morphologic transition.” Now what does
that mean? “Morphology” means
structure. “Phylogy” means “derivation
of all types of animals and plants from a common ancestor,” like a family tree.
Tom
Kemp: “As is now well known, most
fossil species appear instantaneously in the fossil record, persist for some
millions of years virtually unchanged, only to disappear abruptly.”
Mark
Ridley: “In any case, no real
evolutionist . . . uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of
evolution as opposed to special creation . . .”
Supposed
examples of transitional forms:
Archaeopteryx:
Has feathers, skull, perching feet, a wish-bone, like any bird. Feathers very complex structures when
carefully examined. How did scales of reptiles become feathers? Far more a bird
than “reptile.” (Where are all
transitions in-between? Any of them
semi-plausible as having an advantage to continued life when have partially
developed structures?) Alleged features
making it like a reptile not convincing.
No breast bone with a keel issue, skull not found to be reptile-like
once actually removed from stone in one case (rare fossil). Teeth different from alleged dinosaur
ancestor since unserrated and have no wide roots. Some fish, reptiles, mammals,
reptiles have teeth, others don’t, not much proof here of common ancestry. Claws on wings not proof either: 3 living birds, including ostriches, have
them. Several birds don’t have much of
a keel. Fossils of modern birds found
at same time as archaeopteryx, in upper Jurassic rocks. If true, have to find older fossils. (Date rocks by fossils, and fossils by rocks
issue). Can’t be ancestor to all birds
if other birds lived before it!
Horse
series: Development from small Eohippus
to big modern horse (Equus) with one toe.
David
Raup, curator of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. (Ever visited it on vacation? Has famous assembled fossils of big
dinosaurs on display) He admitted: “Well, we are now about 120 years after
Darwin, and knowledge of the fossil record has greatly expanded. . . . Ironically, we have even fewer examples of
evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change
in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have
had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information.”
Horse
series “very deceptive picture,” Saiff and Macbeth. Not series in time order of ancestors and descendants since
overlaps occurred, European and American fossils mixed together to assemble
picture, horse species grew than shrunk than grew. Simpson: “The most famous
of all equid trends, ‘gradual reduction of the side toes’ is flatly
fictitious.” Size variation over 60 million
years not much different than that between Clydesdale horses and Shetland
ponies all living today at same time.
Eohippus may not have been a horse (species at start of series, more
like a rhino-type or like a tapir).
Peppered
moths: light-colored moths found and
eaten by birds off dark tree trunks, lacked good camouflage: Problem of academic fraud or exaggerating
results has been raised, not well known to general public. If true, changing color not same as even
changing species. Extrapolation issue. (Ask for definition of word). Go from evolution of a minor thing to
assuming a massive change could occur when nobody saw it happen. (From microevolution to
macroevolution). Vs. natural, built-in
limits to change. Could never breed a
dog to be the size of an elephant, no matter how hard you tried, although they
vary from a Chihuahua to a St. Bernard.
Penicillin resistance in bacteria example, or insects resisting
DDT. Didn’t change species even, let
alone genus, family, order, class, etc.
Fitches in Galapagos islands Darwin saw, still fitches, not fish,
reptiles, etc.
Explaining
eye, complicated yucca moth/plant relationship: So complex, can’t easily explain by small gradual steps that each
have a value in aiding survival. All or
nothing problem: Need entire structure,
or doesn’t work hardly at all. Example
of tiny glitch in hemoglobin that causes hemophilia, so deadly.
Darwin
on eye: “Although the belief that an
organ so perfect as the eye could have been formed by natural selection, is enough
to stagger any one . . . I have felt the difficult far too keenly to be
surprised at others hesitating to extend the principle of natural selection to
so startling a length.”
Yucca
moth & yucca plant: moth totally
depends on plant, plants can’t be fertilized by anything else than yucca
moths. Female moth gets pollen from
several flowers, then sticks her egg into the ovary of one flower. Larva eats some seeds, not all of them. Moths emerge from flowers 10 months after
pupation, exactly when Yucca plants in flower.
Did blind chance create this?
Symbiotic relationship. Compare
to pilot fish cleaning teeth of sharks. How did this start originally? Would a dumb pilot fish, swimming into a
shark’s jaw, just get eaten?
Munch! Symbiotic relationships
refute evolution (major anomalies).
Conclusion: Need God to explain origin of all animal and
plant life, photosynthesis too complicated to occur by chance.
Have
someone read Romans 1:18-22
Suppress
the truth: Conceal or make up evidence,
like Piltdown man, put unrelated bones together, like Java man, exaggerations
reading into discovered bones (Ramapithecus, teeth and part of jaw bone,
“Nebraska man,” based on tooth only; Australopithecines seen as able to walk
upright like people, vs. Oxnard & Zuckerman), read chronological
developments into sequences not found that way in nature (horse series), engage
in wild extrapolations (from peppered moths, breeding dogs and pigeons to
monocells to men), discard results of experiments or discoveries that conflict
with evolution, like in (re)dating fossils by rocks or fossils found in other
rocks, fudge data (peppered moths apparently), etc.
Have
no excuse: Evidence for creation
ignored, not read, many intellectuals Ph.ds know little more than you do, if
you’ve taken a biology class in high school, doesn’t matter expertise in other
areas like history or physics or engineering.
Claim
to be smart, but aren’t.